Changes start at home, they say. And Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority (BCA) Academy lives up to that adage with its recently opened Zero Energy Building.

At first glance, the 15-year-old retrofitted building looks just like any other. But, upon closer inspection, a monitor on its first floor tells an entirely different story.

As of Oct. 30, some twelve days after the building reopened, the energy meter showed the cumulative energy consumed by the tower, around 6,300 kilowatt per hour (kWh), was covered by its cumulative energy production of 7,700 kWh.

That’s right, energy produced by the various new features in the building.

“We named the building Zero Energy because we wanted it to reflect our objective of at least matching our annual cumulative energy consumption with our yearly energy production. It would be even better off if we could produce more [energy than consume],” BCA senior development officer Tan Li Sirh said.

With that ambitious but not impossible objective, BCA invested S$11 million to fit solar panels, a green façade and other features to help reduce energy use and increase energy generation.

Using passive design principles, the 4,500-square-meter building features shading devices, “living” walls and mirror ducts, reducing its electricity needs by 5 percent.